10 Side Hustles I’ve Had

Ahh, the side hustle. The doted upon darling of the personal finance sphere.

The income diversifier.

The de-risking maneuver.

The debt payer.

The dream achiever.

The stay at home parent budget balancer.

What would you call your side hustle? For me, it’s a way to build skills, connect with others, and pick up a few bucks instead of watching TV.

At this point in my life, there are not a lot of side hustles that I actively seek out. I get paid a solid amount from my day job, and I highly value my free time (though the fact I blog means I don’t really value my time all that highly.)

I remember sitting in a classroom in elementary school, while our teacher drew on the board. This was one of those fun times in class, where the teacher had veered completely off course, but we were all fascinated and paying as much attention as a grade 3 classroom can muster.

Now, I don’t actually remember what he was drawing on the board. I don’t even remember if his drawing skills were all that good (even through my grade 3 lens). What I remember is wondering how on earth one person could have so many different stories, amassed from so many different jobs!

Fast forward a decade and a bit, and I am pretty sure that I have the answer. I too have become a fount of stories, amassed from many different jobs. For the past few years, I have worked for one employer. Despite that, I have done quite a few different side hustles.

I will venture a guess that you haven’t heard of some of my side hustles before!

Pool Testing

My condo building has a pool and a hot tub on the list of amenities. These fun and convenient water bodies have a controlling overlord, the regional Health Authority. At one point in time, the Health Authority decided the chemicals needed to be tested not once, but twice a day. The cost to have the pool services company come out and do so was prohibitive, so the condo board asked if there were any residents willing to do so.

Yes, it was a bit of a pain to have to do something almost every single day. But, it was highly convenient and fairly well paid. My spouse and I split the job for the eight week trial period. I think we earned $15 per test date and it took perhaps 15 minutes to do. I generally did it on my way in the door from work.

It’s not every day an opportunity like that falls out of the sky, but it was a solid bit of extra income.

I started blogging a few months after I got married. Wedding planning can also take up a lot of time, and I felt like I had a ton of time on my hands. I got hooked, what can I say!

Curling Club Bartending

Yes, curling on ice. The sport that Scottish people invented and Canadians adore. I live in a small town and as they say, “when in Rome.” Our curling club gets rented out for all sorts of occasions. Should you ever be in need of a venue, two awesome reasons to rent your local curling club are that 1) the drink prices are usually competing with the Legion to be the lowest in town and 2) the rental fee is usually low enough you can swing it with a few buddies.

For the past few years, our club has had a policy of paying club members (with their Serving It Right licence of course) $50 plus the tips to bartend for private parties. For some lucky folks, the party does not last even close to five hours, and the tips flow in like candy. You might even get some food from the catering. Pretty solid for a night you were going to sit at home and watch TV anyway.

Boat Cleaning

This one is going back a few years, to a university summer. A family friend was planning to put his boat up for sale. This is the kind of boat that despite being quite a few years old, was going to sell for more than a lot of people pay for a house. He needed some elbow grease to get things ship-shape and offered me the job for a long weekend.

I don’t remember everything that I did, but I definitely scrubbed decks and polished brass. I also made substantially more than minimum wage and it was right after I got home for the summer and I hadn’t yet landed a summer job. It was an interesting experience, to say the least, and I am glad that I had the chance. Previously, I had no idea what vast sums of money went into boats!

Making Images for a Web Property

One of my more recent forays into earning some coin has been a temporary gig making featured images for a website. It was quite fun, flexing my creative muscles. I was chomping at the bit to include this side hustle in the list, because the only reason I had the skills to do it was thanks to my blogging time. It is amazing the number of skills you can develop, sometimes without even realizing you are doing so, when you work on hobbies.

Freelance Writing

Yet another side hustle that grew out of my blogging! I tell you, the networking and skills development that you can develop through blogging is impressive. I have ghost written for corporate blogs and websites, written about travel for other bloggers and worked on inbound marketing projects.

Some subsets of writing are much more suited to my style, of course, than others. That said many, many people can earn some extra income thanks to freelance writing. There are so many topics to write about, and I am majorly tipping my hat to Michelle for her home run swing niche. Many side hustlers even take the leap all the way to full time freelancing.

Christmas Party Work Coverage

I have worked at two different hotels. One was massive, aging, and a story all unto itself. The next one is a smaller, franchise hotel in my small town. I worked there for a few months until I was offered a part time, very lucrative gig from a major employer. After I quit, I got a very welcome phone call, “would I like to work the night of the staff Christmas party? We can pay you a bit extra for your trouble, and I’ll do as much as possible before I leave.”

I did a very cruisey front desk shift, was rewarded with some amazing dinner leftovers, and brought in some money on a Friday evening. Even better? They called me again next year!

Swagbucks

I spent some fairly long stretches with part-time employment. During one of those spells, I took to entering a lot of giveaways and looking for easy ways to make some money online. I did a bunch of surveys, and used a few different search engines. One of those was Swagbucks. I would try to get all of the bonus points every day, or watch videos to get a few points here and there. The best part about Swagbucks was how quickly you could reach a redemption level, and redeem for something actually useful. In my case, that was Amazon.com gift cards.

They have a referral program, too, and if you are looking for something completely mindless to do, that earns a few cents, check them out.

Amazon Affiliate

Amazon is my biggest source of online revenues at this point in time. Their affiliate program is awesome! I don’t know if you have ever noticed, but they sell darn near everything on Amazon (of course, this is an affiliate link). Sure, not quite everything, but darn near!

I really, really, really appreciate it whenever you choose to purchase something through my links. It ups my hourly blogging rate from $0.02 to $0.03, and covers the costs of hosting, and some wine.

Babysitting

I think there are very few people who haven’t done any babysitting, at one time or another. I wasn’t a regular, though of course I was jealous of the business savvy of the Babysitter’s Club girls. I did, on occasion, still do a bit of babysitting though.

Well, those are ten of the side hustles I’ve had, have you done any of the ones that I’ve mentioned?

About Anne

Anne dreams of financial independence and is working her way towards it, whilst still enjoying life. She has a penchant for gift giving, which got her started with her first blog, Unique Gifter. She also loves money (who doesn't?) and needed an outlet to discuss it. Her likes? Seafood, figure skating, road cycling and skater shoes.

Comments

Inspiring list of side hustles. I like the pool testing and getting a boat shipshape would be down my alleyway, too. Hope you can add more to the list in time. Opens your mind to think a little outside the box. Thank you.Silke recently posted…Small Pools and Spas for Small Backyards

Great side hustles, Anne. I never thought that you did boat cleaning and pool testing for side hustles. That must be really such an experience! High five!Jayson @ Monster Piggy Bank recently posted…Amazon FBA Part 9 â Shipping / Freight

I haven’t done any side hustles in the past six months, but I really want to get back into it. I’ve done some of the stuff on your list, but the boat cleaning and curling club bartending sounds super cool (I had to google what curling club was :P)Anum recently posted…How Money Delays Our Timeline

Wow – quite the list! Blogging is the only one of these that I’ve done (although I haven’t made money from it yet). I’ve also done things like house sit on occasion and work as a teaching assistant.Ali @ Anything You Want recently posted…Lifestyle Inflation Illustrated

If you think Swagbucks pays out quickly, I highly recommend webperspectives.ca – but it’s for Canadians only (although they do have survey panels for other countries listed in the FAQ Registration section). Most surveys pay out $1 or more, whereas Swagbucks rarely have anything over $1. The downside is there are only a few reward options, but one of them is Amazon.ca. In the 2 months I’ve been a member, I’ve earned $50 worth of GC.

Okay, but enough promoting a survey site – haha!

My side hustles have all be similar to the ones you listed. I babysat, I have a blog, I freelance write, I spend waaaay too much time answering surveys for pennies, and I used to be a Bar Manager. (Which, incidentally, being the bar manager was one of my favourite jobs I’ve ever had!)Amanda @ My Life, I Guess recently posted…Beauty On A Budget

Nice, that’s a pretty solid survey payout, considering how much most pay. I worked at a bagel place and it’s the best job I’ve ever had! Sometimes service jobs can be awesome (and other times they can suck so bad!)Anne recently posted…7 Luxuries I’d Have to Give Up if Things Went South

Love the art of the side hustle! It’s been a while since I did one besides blogging, but I’ve mowed yards, done taxes, owned a snowcone stand, and probably a dozen other things. Love the pool one. That’s an easy win.Adam @ AdamChudy.com recently posted…2015 Q2 Review

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The Bottom

You made it all the way to the bottom! Thanks so much for reading.
Did you know that The Bottom is the name of a town on the island of Saba, in the Caribbean? I went there on a trip once.
The other bottoms I think about are my own bottom, and the bottom of the champagne bottle. Often when I find the bottom of the champagne bottle, my own bottom grows. Funny, that.

Thanks for reading!

- Anne

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